


It Was Always Possible

by iamthececimonster



Series: Possibilities [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Continuation, Drinking, Fluff, M/M, Marriage, Minor Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 09:34:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamthececimonster/pseuds/iamthececimonster
Summary: "I Didn't Think It Was Possible" from the point of view of Officer Brad Lenny. Definitely read that one first.





	It Was Always Possible

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd
> 
> This is the second part that so many people asked for. Includes the wedding. I just really love this cop for whom I have created a personality. I'm not gonna apologize.

It really started out like any other day. He was working the later shift. Carlos woke up first, on his first alarm, pressed a gentle kiss into Brad’s head, and tried to slide out of bed without letting too much cold in. The bitter Chicago wind threatened their apartment’s windows, but the heater was consistent and the blankets were warm. And smelled like Carlos. Through the haze of early morning half-sleep, Brad could sort of hear Carlos starting his morning routine of coffee-breakfast-shower. When the second alarm rang, pulling Brad from his sleep, Carlos followed moments later, neat tie and button down shirt in exact order, holding Brad’s coffee mug. He smiled when his husband handed him the coffee, and pulled him down for a slightly less-than-chaste, sleepy, care not to wrinkle his husband’s tie kiss. Then Carlos was gone, Brad finished his coffee in the living room to the sound of their dog, a droopy basset hound named Charlie, snuffling into his food bowl. A very typical morning: put warm clothes on, walk the dog, eat breakfast while Charlie snored, change, drive to work. 

Unfortunately, it was a boring shift. Which was dangerous. Never boded well. 

Then, mid-afternoon, halfway through Officer Brad Lenny’s shift, a tired-looking P.O. walked in and looked Officer Lenny’s partner dead in the eye. 

“Terry Milkovich is gettin’ out in a couple hours.” 

“Shit.” Officer Julius muttered, pressing a hand against his eyes. 

Officer Lenny groaned. Shit was exactly right. Never a good sign. 

So, when a call came in, an hour before Lenny’s shift was over, reporting a fight at the Alibi, Lenny and Julius called for auxiliary backup. Any fight involving the Alibi on the day Terry Milkovich got out of jail almost certainly involved Terry Milkovich, and any fight involving Terry Milkovich almost certainly required backup. And they prepared themselves for more of the usual. And the worst. 

What Lenny did not expect was the scene they actually arrived to. Some kind of party - a baptism, maybe, if the priest, the squalling baby, and the thin, shocked looking young Russian lady that Lenny was about 80% sure he’d picked up on solicitation charges before were anything to go by. Kevin, the generally harmless idiot of an owner, was pretending to meditate, and Terry and at least two of his buddies were, by the looks of it, trying to actually kill two teenage boys. The one Terry was currently trying to punch and strangle at the same time was almost certainly his youngest son, Mickey. That boy had a helluva reputation at the station already. The other one was tall, with bright orange hair. Lenny was pretty sure he was a Gallagher. As they walked in, Mickey started to get the upper hand on Terry, and Lenny (and probably the entire street) could hear Terry screaming. 

“Get your faggot hands off me, you piece of shit queer!” Terry shouted at his son, fury twisting his already ugly face into something horrifying and otherworldly. 

For a brief moment, Lenny froze. Then he grabbed the younger Milkovich, narrowly missing an elbow to the jaw. Julius and their backup, Officer Scotty, both grabbed Terry, and Lenny was pretty sure Scotty was gonna have a nasty bruise on her ribcage when this was all over. 

The scene outside was almost surreal. Mickey, protesting against the cuffs Lenny had finally gotten on his wrists, thrusting against the hood of Lenny’s cruiser, taunting his father with vulgar language even as his father was spitting slurs and struggling to break free from Julius’s grip. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened here, and if he listened carefully enough, Lenny could hear the slight shaking in Mickey’s voice. Could certainly feel it in his cuffed hands, as he came out to the entire street with screaming vulgarity. The lanky redheaded Gallagher was still there, staring. 

So, when they finally had Terry in the cruiser, Lenny pulled Mickey up, uncuffed him, and told him he was free to go. When the teenager stared at him, incredulous, he stared right back, and forced as much of his meaning as he could into his words. 

“If I arrest you, it’s gonna be a lot of paperwork.” He said, trying to memorize the boy’s face. “Keep me in the office all night. I’d rather get home to my husband, Carlos.”

_ It’ll be okay.  _ He wanted to say.

_ There will be a future.  _ He tried to tell the boy. 

_ You are not alone. _ He hoped the boy understood. 

Mickey just stared at him. But then, he looked past Lenny, in the direction of his boyfriend flipping off his father, and almost smiled. So Lenny figured maybe he got it. 

When he got home, sore and tired and weary and shaken, full of ghosts and worry and sadness, he let Carlos massage his shoulders in the shower, take care of him. In the shadows of the bed he shared with the man who was finally, legally, fully, his for the rest of forever, he told his husband about the call. About the very real way Terry wanted to kill his son for loving another man, the way Mickey hid his fear behind the vulgarity and screaming, the way Mickey and the redhead looked together, almost laughing and holding their broken ribs, the kiss he watched the redhead press into Mickey’s hair as he turned the corner. 

“They’ll be okay.” Carlos promised, even though they both knew it might not be true. Not in this neighborhood. Not in this lifetime. 

After a moment, Carlos spoke up again. “Helluva coming out, though.”

Helplessly, a little hysterically, Brad laughed. 

***

Brad knew he couldn’t reach out to Mickey, or to the redhead. But he kept his ears out, uncomfortably invested in the fate of these two boys who were waiting for the streets to swallow them up and spit them back out again. Brad, and through him Carlos, kept tabs on the youngest Milkovich boy and his redheaded companion. The streets in the South Side don’t ever keep secrets as well as anyone thinks they do, so long as you know the right way to ask, the right way to look for the answers. 

So, through MPs and arrests and whispers of a coked out mania, Brad Lenny followed the fates of two boys through the South Side of Chicago and hoped - prayed, maybe, and wouldn’t that make his mother laugh, if she would hear it - that it wouldn’t turn out as bad as it looked. Then there were more arrests, and a prison sentence, and a very televised protest that he and Carlos sat glued to the TV watching, and Lenny felt something that might’ve been guilt twisting in his stomach. That maybe he could’ve done more. And fear. Fear because things were changing, but were they, really? Were they at all? 

Two days after Officer Brad Lenny retired from the Chicago Police Department, whispers started going around that Mikhailo Aleksandr Milkovich escaped from prison. When he told Carlos, over dinner that night, Carlos’ eyes got wide and terrified. The Gallagher boy, very nearly a man now, disappeared for a few days, and then came back with sad eyes and a strange face. 

And then Lenny heard, the way former cops get to hear things, through a convoluted grapevine in a city like this one, about the Gallagher boy going to prison. And then he heard about the Milkovich boy following him. Then he donated more money than they could probably afford to the Center on Halsted’s youth program and cried into Carlos’ white t-shirt in bed that night. He wasn’t sure, really, what he was crying for. For the terrified boy screaming at his father all those years ago, for the redhead with the broken ribs and busted up face bravely flipping off Terry Milkovich, maybe even for the tiny, terrified Brad Lenny who had been kicked out of his mom’s house when she caught him kissing his lab partner in 11th grade. For everything and nothing and a world where it just wasn’t fair. 

***

A few years passed. Brad and Carlos tossed the idea of moving somewhere warmer back and forth when the winter wind was freezing, but they never did anything more than talk about it, and vacation to South Florida one year in January during a terrible snowstorm. They concluded that they really couldn’t do all that, couldn’t leave the South Side. Both of them had that blood in their veins, their lives were here, the tiny family they had built. Charlie was old now, but still loved the snow. So they kept the heater running and had a collection of quilts and blankets on their bed and the sofa and in the closet. Passively, Brad kept his ear to the pulse of the South Side, listening out for whispers of Gallagher and Milkovich and whatever might happen next. 

The day he found out Terry Milkovich died of a heart attack, alone in his rotten home, Brad Lenny went out for a drink with his old partner and several other cops at a bar just outside the South Side so they could quietly celebrate the death of a menace. Julius clapped him on the shoulder when he got off on his L stop, smiled in his quiet way, like he knew that Lenny was celebrating for at least two people. Carlos held him while he cried again. 

***

They were getting old. He could feel it. In the way it sometimes took him a couple tries to get off the sofa, in the way Carlos’ skin wrinkled just a little bit more around the eyes when he smiled every time. But waking up next to Carlos never got old. Making dinner with Carlos, watching the Cubs games with Carlos, going to lunch with their friends with Carlos. None of that would ever get old. Getting old with his husband was never going to get old. 

***

It was warm, humid and the sky was threatening rain. The highlight reel of the game the Cubs had lost the night before was on the television. Charlie was snoring, and along with the threat of thunderstorms came a pain in Brad’s right hip that the doctors called arthritis. Brad called it “that damn thug with a fucking knife for no god damn reason” when he was really pissed off about it. Carlos gave him a smirk when he was cussing, and a heating pad when it genuinely hurt. Julius called him an old man and laughed. 

Either way, it hurt. So when somebody knocked at the door, Carlos got up to get it before Brad could even offer. Brad heard the door open, a moment of silence, and then his husband hollered back to him. He could hear the smile in Carlos’ voice before the end of the first word. 

“Hey Len?” Carlos calls out, voice cracking with a grin. “The Milkovich kid is here to see you.”

Startled, Lenny lurched forward. Charlie looked up, slightly alarmed. Carlos brought the boy in the room. He looked starched and uncomfortable in a button down and nice jeans, with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. Lenny managed to stand. He opened his mouth to speak, but Mickey just held the bottle up awkwardly. 

“I’m getting married.” He blurted out, a little louder than he probably meant to be. 

Lenny’s heart skips a few too many beats while Mickey tells him that he’s marrying the redheaded Gallagher boy, smiling like the world was opening up just for him. He means it, absolutely and wholeheartedly, when he tells Mickey they’ll be there, at the wedding. 

  
  


They get an invitation - scrawled in messy ink - on a plain piece of paper that makes Carlos chuckle a little. Mickey had said that there weren’t official invitations, but he made one and sent it to them anyway. Brad put it on the refrigerator next to the picture of Carlos and his niece at her college graduation. 

***

The morning of, Brad was unsettlingly nervous. “How nice do you think we need to dress for this?”

“Len, the reception is at the Alibi.” Carlos soothed around a mouth full of toothpaste. 

Lenny looked up at the ceiling. “There’s got to be some kind of unhealthy irony there.”

“Oh at least.”

In the end, they both put on ties and traipsed over to a church they didn’t really know the name of. They were seated by a young man Lenny passively recognized as possibly being Carl Gallagher. 

It was a quiet ceremony. Kevin, in a suit that looked like it felt uncomfortable on his shoulders, was officiating the proceedings, the smile in his eyes belying the serious tone of his voice. Ian and Mickey stood at the alter, with Ian’s older brother and Mickey’s younger sister bracketing them. Brad couldn’t really tell you much about the ceremony itself. Just that Mickey’s suit looked tailored, and that Ian was looking at him like he personally made the sun come up, that the grip of their hands looked very nearly painful, that Mickey’s younger sister looked a little teary in her green dress, that the older-now Russian lady two rows in front of them was sitting next to a stocky, dark haired boy in a miniature suit, who was maybe in elementary school. Then Kevin said something about kissing and Mickey was holding Ian’s face in his hands, new ring glinting in the overhead lights, and Ian’s hands were gripping Mickey’s waist like he was worried he would float away, and they were kissing like the world was ending. Lenny reached out next to him and found Carlos’s hand, ready and open and lacing their fingers together. He pressed a gentle kiss to his husband’s cheek and could feel the warm track of a tear down Carlos’s face. He could feel the way his husband smiled, could feel himself smile like his skin was cracking. 

There was a mad-ish rush to the Alibi after the kissing was done. Lenny and Carlos sat down at the bar, where Kevin in half a suit and a curly-haired blonde guy that Lenny was 72% sure was another Milkovich were starting to pour beers. He was feeling the beginning of the edge of uncomfortable curling around his ears, but then Kevin slammed a beer down in front of him, and one in front of Carlos, with a wink like he knew more than he would ever admit to (Julius had always said that Kevin was an idiot, but Lenny always felt like the bartender played up the idiot card a little bit too well for it to 100% accurate), and that helped. The bar was full and loud and then the happy couple burst through the doors, hand in hand, and the sound reached a joyful fever pitch. The young man Lenny was pretty sure was Carl Gallagher set off a confetti cannon, the lady that was probably Ian’s older sister was crying, Mickey had lost his suit jacket and tie before even entering the building and Ian’s bowtie was hanging loose around his neck. Carlos clapped loudly along with the crowd of people, and Lenny let out a sharp whistle that almost couldn’t be heard above the din. 

Kevin’s wife brought out a massive cake and put it on a table in the center of the room. Mickey raised an eyebrow at Ian like he was daring him to make a mess, but it was Ian who ended up with cake smeared across his cheek. It ended up on Mickey’s face moments later when Ian kissed him. Then someone Lenny didn’t recognize started playing a slow-ish song, and the curly-haired older brother who had been standing next to Ian whistled low. Ian rolled his eyes, and grabbed Mickey by the belt loops. Carlos laughed. Mickey looked like he was trying to decide if this was painful or the best thing that ever happened to him. Ian won out, and they rotated in a slow circle, barely moving, to a song Lenny didn’t recognize. 

Then the person behind what Lenny was pretty sure was just an old iPod and a probably stolen speaker system (this was, after all, the Alibi. Almost no one in here had an alibi.) apparently got bored of that and turned on a loud classic rock song that sounded like it was probably Thin Lizzy. The room erupted again, and there were suddenly several dozen boxes of pizza and laughter, people were dancing, beer was free-flowing. After a few moments, Kevin’s wife dragged the probably-Carl behind the bar, shoved him towards the blonde guy, and grabbed Kevin’s arm. 

“What the fuck, V?” probably-Carl groused. 

“Iggy,” she ignored the young man, looking over at the blonde guy, and yep. Lenny recognized that name. Definitely one of Mickey’s brothers. “Carl is taking over for Kevin for a minute. I’m dancing with my husband.” And yep, again. Carl. He looked well. 

Iggy just shrugged and handed a beer to somebody. “Long as he doesn’t make a mess I don’t give a fuck.”

Carl narrowed his eyes. “I know how to pour a fucking beer, man.”

There was a voice next to Lenny. “Yeah, Iggy. It’s a Gallagher family requirement. Must be able to pour beer by age 10.” It was the curly haired older brother. Lenny snorted into his beer. 

The guy looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Do I know you?”

Lenny shook his head. “No, but I knew your father. Kind of. I guess.”

“You knew Frank?” Carl said, while handing Carlos another beer - the first was gone. Lenny was driving. “I’m sorry for your loss, man.”

Lenny bit his lip. Carlos looked like he was trying not to laugh. “I didn’t know him that well. Just was familiar with his habits, I suppose.”

Mickey slid up to the bar and took a beer from his brother. “Everybody in this fucking shithole is familiar with the habits of Frank Gallagher. Pretty sure Kevin named a barstool after him. How’s it going, Lenny?”

“You know this guy?” Older brother asked, curious and a little curt. 

“Fuck off, Lip.” Mickey said, without any bite at all. 

Lip, apparently, just shrugged, took the beer and a glass of water his younger brother was handing him, and walked off somewhere. Lenny watched him hand the beer to Mickey’s younger sister and take a sip of the water. Which was a little curious, but probably not Lenny’s business. 

Mickey took a sip of his beer. “Hey, thanks for coming.” He looked a little bashful. 

Lenny nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, son. Congratulations.”

Mickey’s ears turned a little red, and he busied himself with his beer glass. “Thanks.” He told the bartop. 

Carlos leaned forward. “So, do we get to meet your lucky guy?”

Mickey brightened at that, stood up a little straighter. He turned to the bar. “Ey, Gallagher!” He shouted over the music that was now playing an unrecognizable hip hop song. 

A half dozen people turned to look at Mickey. Carl snickered. “Half the people in this fucking bar are Gallaghers, Milkovich.”

“The other half are Milkoviches, idiot.” Iggy remarked, handing what looked like it was probably a soda to the redhead striding up to the bar. “And Mickey only calls one of you Gallagher.” He smiled at Ian. The smile looked a little foreign on his face.

Mickey just rolled his eyes, and took Ian’s hand, tugged him closer. 

“Hey Mick.” Ian said, and then looked at Lenny and Carlos, almost unseeing. He pressed a kiss to Mickey’s cheek. Then he looked again and a flash of recognition crossed his face. “Uh, hi.”

“Ian,” Mickey’s voice was soft. “This is Lenny, and his husband Carlos.”

Lenny stuck his hand out, and Ian shook it, and then Carlos’s, almost on autopilot. “Are you…” he started.

Mickey leaned closer to Ian, nearly whispering. “Lenny is the cop that didn’t arrest me the night of Yev’s baptism.” His eyes were wide with meaning. 

“Oh. Shit.” Ian’s eyes widened. “Wait, you have a husband?” Lenny could practically see the pieces falling together in Ian’s brain. “Ohhhhhhhh. That’s why you didn’t arrest Mickey!” He sort-of whispered. 

Carlos coughed, and it sounded suspiciously like he was trying very hard not to laugh. 

Lenny shrugged, and took a sip of his now lukewarm beer. “I told him I wanted to get home to my husband.” 

Ian blinked several times, ran his tongue along his lower lip like he was feeling for a split lip that wasn’t there anymore. For a brief moment, Lenny wondered how many ghost-wounds these two young men had, how many things reminded them of a bruise they once had. 

Kevin returned to the bar. “Another drink, Officer?” He asked Lenny. 

Lenny rolled his eyes. “I’ve been retired for years now, thanks. You can just call me Lenny, Kevin. And no, just water is fine.” 

Kevin looked a little surprised to be addressed by his name, but handed Lenny a glass of water all the same. Then he kicked Carl out from behind the bar, told him to go dance with his sister, and moved down the bar to serve somebody else. 

“That was a helluva fight.” Ian remarked, like they were talking about the scores of a baseball game, or the weather. 

Carlos sniggered. “Helluva coming out.” 

Mickey snorted into his beer. “Yeah, fuck. I guess you could say that.” 

Then the young boy careened towards Mickey’s legs, icing smeared across his forehead somehow, followed by the Russian woman who looked like she was pretending to look apologetic. 

“Papa! Aunt Debbie gave me two slices of cake!” 

“Fucking Christ.” Mickey muttered. Ian closed his eyes briefly, and then glared at a redheaded girl across the room, who had the decency to look a little apologetic. 

“Yevgeny. Don’t be rude.” The woman said, with the careful voice of someone who is trying to pretend they didn’t have an accent. 

“Oh, that’s alright.” Lenny said with a smile, and handed Mickey a napkin. 

Ian took it, dipped it in a glass of water that had somehow showed up next him without a word, and wiped the icing off of the boy’s forehead. “Did you eat anything other than cake, Yev?” He asked.

The boy squinted. “Dad. I had pizza, too.” With all the beleaguered attitude of a ten year old who wants to be taken very seriously.

“Yev, where are your glasses?” Mickey asked. 

The boy shrugged. The woman handed them to him while she stared at Lenny, curiously. The same confused recognition crossed her face as had Ian’s. 

“Thanks Mama.” The boy said as he put them on. Then he looked curiously at Lenny and Carlos. 

“Oh. Svet, this is Lenny and his husband, Carlos.” Mickey gestured, then picked his son up and put him on the barstool next to Lenny. “Yev, this is my friend Lenny and his husband Carlos. This is my son, Yev, and his mother, Svetlana.”

“It’s lovely to meet you.” Carlos smiled brightly. 

Lenny smiled, and put his hand out. Svetlana shook it, carefully, quickly. 

“You are…”

“Yes.”

“You did not arrest piece of shit ex-husband. You did not arrest me, too.” She said, voice even and emotionless. 

Lenny blinked. “Uh.” 

“I remember you. You are good. You have very handsome husband. Thank you for coming to piece of shit ex-husband’s wedding.”

Lenny just blinked some more. “Thank...you?”

Mickey laughed. “Svet, stop scaring the man.”

“I do not scare. I am polite.”

Ian bit his lip but his eyes were laughing. 

“How come you know both my mama and my papa?” Yev asked, curious. “Do you also know my dad?”

Carlos burst out laughing, finally. When he lost it, Ian did as well. Mickey looked at his ex-wife, and then at the ex-cop, threw his hands up, and then chugged the last of his beer. Svetlana almost grinned. Lenny studied the small boy, who looked so much like Mickey it was a little unsettling. 

“I...knew them when they were much younger. I helped them with some trouble they were having. But I did not really know your dad.” He said, carefully. 

“Did you know me when I was a baby?” The boy asked with wide blue eyes. 

Lenny opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I saw you, once. But we did not formally meet, no.” 

“Are we formally meeting right now?”

“Yes, Yev, I suppose we are.”

The little boy sat up very straight, stuck his hand out, and said “Then it is nice to meet you, Mr. Lenny.”

Lenny bit back a smile and shook the small hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, too, Mr. Yevgeny.” He said, carefully pronouncing the name as close as he could to the way the boy’s mother had. 

“Shit, kid. Who taught you those manners?” Mickey said, with a smirk on his face and his eyebrows arched. 

The boy furrowed his own eyebrows. They were practically carbon copies. “Dad did, obviously.”

Ian blushed. Mickey cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, I guess that tracks. You sure as shit didn’t learn them from me.” 

“I have manners.” Svetlana said, taking the shot glass Kevin was handing her. 

“No you don’t.” Mickey said, deadpan. “You trick people into thinking you have manners and then threaten their lives.”

Svetlana threw back the shot, and then cocked her own head. “I suppose is true.” She grabbed the boy by the hand. “Come, Yevgeny. Go play.”

The boy hopped off the barstool cheerfully enough, skittering through the crowds of the people in the bar. Only in this neighborhood could a boy his age learn to navigate a crowded bar so adeptly. Svetlana wandered off. Lenny was left staring at the youngest Milkovich boy and his husband, and he could almost smell the discomfort rolling off Mickey’s shoulders. 

“So, uh…” Mickey started, and then trailed off. Ian grabbed his hand and squeezed. 

Lenny leaned forward. “Thank you for inviting us. Really. You have a lovely family. And it was a lovely ceremony.” 

Ian snickered. “We weren’t much bothered about a ceremony, but my family is weird about shit like that. We just wanted a party.” 

Lenny nodded. “We just went to the justice of the peace and then went and had a ridiculously expensive dinner.”

Mickey nudged Ian. “See! I told you, this shit was not necessary.”

“You wanna tell Debs and Mandy that?”

Mickey pondered for a second. He looked out at the crowd, and Lenny watched him lock eyes with his little sister, grinning, just like Iggy, in a way that looked almost-strange on a Milkovich face, while dancing with Yev. 

“Yeah, no.”

“My point exactly.”

“Are you doing any kind of honeymoon?” Carlos asked. 

Ian shrugged. “I think Fiona got us some kind of hotel room or something, but we both have work and shit. Can’t exactly just jet off on vacation.”

Lenny nodded again. The music was reaching a volume that was almost unbearable and he was pretty sure he could smell weed smoke coming from somewhere. He did not want to investigate that. 

Mickey seemed to have an uncanny sense for reading people, the way he looked at Lenny when he spoke. “Well, hey listen. This party is probably going to get increasingly insane. No pressure to stay if it’s not your scene or whatever.”

Lenny smiled. “I think we probably won’t stay too much longer. We’re getting old, not quite so down for a raucous party as we used to be.”

“If you want cake, I’d get it now.” Ian commented. “These heathens leave nothing and will not be polite enough to bring it to you.” 

Carlos stood next to Lenny. “Ian, it was lovely to meet you. Mickey, please bring your husband over for dinner soon. Call us any time.” He stuck his hand out. Ian shook it. Mickey shoved his hands in his pockets, but smiled none the less. 

“It was nice to meet you, too.” Ian said. He then turned to Lenny, offered his hand. Lenny shook it.

“Take care of him, yeah?” Lenny said, nodding to Mickey. 

Ian smiled. “We take care of each other.”

Mickey bit his lip. His ears turned faintly red. 

“Congrats again, son.” Lenny said to Mickey. “You did good.”

Mickey’s ears got redder. “Thanks.” He mumbled, barely audible over the music. 

“And Mickey?”

He looked at the former officer, curiously.

“No fighting tonight?”

Mickey just scoffed. “Whatever, man. I’ll see ya.” He grabbed Ian’s hand, and dragged the redhead away from the bar. 

Lenny turned to Carlos. “Should we leave?”

Carlos drank the last of his beer, put the glass back on the table, pulled his jacket back on, and took Lenny’s hand. They weaved around the party-goers. Lip nodded from where he was sitting with a skinny, teenaged boy Lenny had not met and the redheaded girl that had apparently given Yev too much cake. Lenny nodded back. 

The street was quiet, almost. This city was never really completely quiet, but in comparison to the music and chaos inside the bar, the neon-lit street seemed like a sanctuary. For a moment, Lenny turned around and stared in the window. It was grimy and the neon sign in the upper corner was buzzing in a valiant effort to stay lit. But past that, he could see Ian and Mickey dancing again, Ian’s head thrown back in a full-body laugh and Mickey pretending to scowl. Carlos’ hand was warm in his, a little sweaty. It was a humid, damp night, and the sky was trying heroically to hold on to daylight. It could not be more different from the last time Lenny saw the Milkovich boy at the Alibi. A chill went down his neck. Carlos stepped closer. 

“They did it, Lenny. They’re okay. We can go home now.” He whispered, gently, seeming to understand what Lenny was thinking without him ever having to say it. Carlos was good like that. Marriage was good like that. 

“I just didn’t think it was possible.” Lenny whispered. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out, again, to deadlymilkovich (here and insta). 
> 
> I pretty much survive on external validation, so if you wanted to leave a kudos or a comment, it'd be a dream come true. Also, reccs are always welcome, here or on tumblr: iamthececimonster.


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